Infrastructure-based businesses (such as water, electric, oil and gas companies) must determine how to allocate available resources to their customers in view of current and future conditions. Fundamental changes on both the supply-side and consumption-side of resources, as well as technological advancements that provide increased granularity of resource utilization, combine to make allocation decisions more complex.
For example, electrical utilities have traditionally generated power at remote plants and delivered electricity to residential, business or industrial customers via transmission networks and distribution grids. Going forward, however, electrical power is increasingly provided by additional distributed sources, such as wind, tidal, geothermal, solar and other alternative energy sources, as well as electricity generated and/or stored by third parties, such as batteries. Due, at least in part, to the shift away from fossil fuels towards the “electron economy,” electricity sinks have also become more varied. The advent, and increased use of, for example, power supply batteries, compressed air storage, electrical vehicles and trains, as well as the presence of large consumers of electricity (such as public transit companies) renders the proper allocation of electricity more important. Water, sewage, oil and gas distribution networks are also increasing in complexity. All these infrastructures are in need of more intelligent management so that our modern civilization will not be disrupted.
FIG. 1 shows a conventional infrastructure 100 associated with the generation, transmission and distribution of electrical power to residential, business, and industrial customers. Infrastructure 100 can be viewed as having four primary sections, namely, generation 110, transmission 120, primary distribution 130, and secondary distribution 140. Generation 110 involves a prime mover, which spins an electromagnet, generating large amounts of electrical current at a power plant or generating station. Transmission 120 involves sending the electrical current at very high voltage (e.g., at hundreds of kV) from the generating station to substations closer to the customer. Primary distribution 130 involves sending electricity at mid-level voltage (e.g., at tens of kV) from substations to local transformers over cables (feeders). Each of the feeders, which can be 10-20 km long (e.g., as in the case of Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc.'s distribution system in New York City), supplies electricity to neighborhoods using a few tens of local feeders connecting each area substation to a few tens to hundreds of local transformers. Each feeder can include many cable sections connected by joints and splices. Secondary distribution 140 involves sending electricity at nominal household low voltages from local transformers to individual customers over radial or networked feeder connections.
FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary infrastructure 200 that illustrates the additional complexities utilities now encounter. Power generated from remote sources (e.g., a nuclear power plant) supply the electric distribution grid 205 with limitations of electricity throughput that is supplemented by local distributed generators 210 and renewables like solar sources 220. Electricity sinks can be distinguished based on whether they represent a non-curtailable load 230 or a curtailable load 240. Electrical customers, or the utility itself, can also store energy for later consumption 250 (e.g., to take advantage of temporary drops in the price of electricity or local shortages in supply), representing both an electrical sink and an electrical source. Charging electrical vehicles 260, which are also capable of supplying electricity to the grid similar to a mobile energy storage device, further place additional demands and complexities on the utility and transportation infrastructures. In addition, water and sewage systems are very large users of electrical power that also must be intelligently managed given multisource and multisink variability.
Given the increased complexities faced by all infrastructure-based businesses, there remains a need to provide for the orderly and efficient distribution of resources to consumers, such as, but not limited to, the efficient allocation of electricity to consumers. Such a new, smart, distribution grid will be needed to control the coming electric economy dominated by electric vehicles, electric trains, subways, and buses, and partially powered by alternative wind, solar, and other distributed energy generation and storage resources (hereafter “DR”).